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California Millennial Pioneers World Of Start-up Fiction

Millennial Thursdays: Twenty-seven year old Eliot Peper has never worked in an office on the typical nine to five schedule, saying, “I’m pretty sure I am allergic to structure.”

And before an outcry about a wishy-washy millennial mindset, one needs to take a look at the author and consultant’s life. In the past year and a half, the native Californian published his first book, “Uncommon Stock,” traveled the world for nine months, married his fiancée and launched a start-up consultancy business. His take-away?

“The big thing is experiment. I know that many of my mistakes have been due to over planning,” says Peper. “The fact is, if you really love something, getting a job doing that is not a prerequisite. I didn’t have a publishing offer before I started writing a book.”

Eliot Peper: published, married and world-traveled, all before thirty. Photo credit: Eliot Peper.

In 2012, the self-described voracious reader was frustrated that there wasn’t any fiction about tech entrepreneurship and decided to write his own book. Set in Boulder, Colorado, “Uncommon Stock” is a startup thriller that explores the highs and lows of founding a tech company, as the main character Mara partners with best friend James. Published in Spring 2014, the book debuted at the top of its Amazon category and is available in both hardcover and as an e-book. For a free download of the first ten chapters, click here.

Peper finished writing the book on his nine-month world trip, penning the last pages while on a beach in the Maldives. He was toying with the idea of self-publishing when he was approached by the newly formed FG Press, a publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado. Created by members of the Foundry Group, FG Press wanted to bring their venture capital mentality to publishing.

“In the past, either you are going to self-publish and spend thousands and thousands of dollars to have a garage full of books that now you have to go out and figure how to sell, or you go to a publisher, they will print a certain amount of books and if they don’t sell, the publisher has to give the money back. The bookstores can return books as long as they want,” explains Sandy Grason, Chief Marketing Officer of FG Press. “That model doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”

“I don’t see a distinction between self-publishing and traditional publishing,” says Peper. “I see a distinction between professionally published books and unprofessionally published books.”

“I think that people who are really wrapped up in the traditional publishing mindset, they are diluting themselves. Authors are personal brands. There is no way you can get around that,” says Peper. “I’ve literally never bought a book because it was published by Random House.”

However, Peper acknolwedges that self-publishing entails more work, and perhaps is not the best path for all writers.

“Writing is often an artistic endeavor, and your calling may or may not be, ‘oh I want to manage a bunch of freelancers,’” explains Peper. Some self-published authors whose careers the millennial admires include James Altucher and Hugh Howey.

“What happened to movies and music ten years ago is what is happening to book publishing now,” says Peper. “It is not really clear that the industry has learned much from those other two implosions.”

One way that Peper does think the industry is innovating? Serialized publishing, wherein episodes of a book are released on a weekly basis, and oftentimes will be available for free during a certain block of time. If readers miss the deadline, they then pay for the content. He points to the example of Michelle Miller, another start-up fiction author who used this model with her recent book, “The Underwriting.”

“Serial storytelling is awesome,” says Peper. “We’ve seen it since the 19th century, the whole reason serial storytelling fell off is because of printer economics.”

As e-readers change the publishing model again, serialized content is back in vogue. If you are interested in serializing your work, make sure that it can stand on its own merit. Peper advises to avoid cliffhangers, as they can seem gimmicky. Also, don’t be tempted to give away content totally for free.

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